A Family Outing
by altenprano
Summary: Sybil and Tom attend a rally with Sybil's cousin Isobel, now Lady Merton. S/T Secret Valentine's Exchange for scarletcourt


**A/N: So here's my contribution to the SybilXTom Secret Valentine's Exchange. **

**My Secret Valentine was ****scarletcourt, and the prompt was "****Tom and Sybil attending a political rally with Lady Merton," and so here it goes. **

**Happy Valentine's to you, scarletcourt, and I hope there is an abundance of chocolate and flowers for you on this day **

**Declaimer: I do not own _Downton Abbey._ If I did, Sybil might still be alive. **

* * *

"Are you sure this was a good idea, love?" Tom asked as he and Sybil stepped off the train, waiting for the third member of their party.

"Eileen asked to come, Tom, and she's old enough that I don't see any point in denying her," his wife answered, taking her daughter by the hand.

Sybil did have a point, but Tom couldn't help but feel the slightest bit protective of the girl who was the spitting image of her mother, save for her eyes, which she'd gotten from her father.

At nearly thirteen years old, Eileen was the light of both her parents' lives (the very reason they'd chosen that name for their first child), and was already beginning to take interest in local politics. Neither of her parents did anything to discourage their daughter's interest, though Tom did suggest that she read some of the old Enlightenment thinkers, so she could better understand what she was supporting and learn to argue her platform.

"Are we going to see Duckie?" Eileen asked as they departed the train station for the square where the rally was to be held.

Both Tom and Sybil laughed at their daughter's name for Lord Merton, and Tom knew his wife must be thinking the same thing.

_First Donk, and now Duckie, _he'd told his wife before bed the night Eileen was formerly introduced to Cousin Isobel's second husband. _God knows what's next._

Luckily, Lord Merton hadn't seemed to mind, rather, he found the girl's nickname for him rather charming, and thank God for that. It was bad enough that Lord Grantham had been indignant when a two-year-old Eileen had somehow managed to give him the silliest, most non-traditional name that any grandfather had been given in perhaps the history of the human race.

"I'm afraid not," Sybil said. "He wrote saying he'd love to have come, but his oldest son is getting married soon, and I suppose he had tea or something with the girl's parents."

"God bless her," Tom said, shaking his head. "She's a brave one, or a foolish one...You'd have to be either to marry _that_ particular Grey, I suppose. And it's a wonder Lord Merton's bothering at all, after the mishap with the new Lady Merton."

"What's so bad about him Da?"

_God bless you, Eileen, _Tom thought, envying his daughter's innocence on the matter of Larry Grey. Like her mother, it seemed that Eileen couldn't find the bad things in people, only the good, though how long that would last, Tom was unsure.

"Nothing," Sybil was quick to answer. "Only he wasn't very kind to my cousin Isobel when Duckie married her."

"And he wasn't very kind to me either."

"Tom."

He looked at his wife. "What? She did ask."

"Not now. When she's older." It never ceased to amaze him how quickly Sybil could go from lighthearted to stern, though he hoped she knew she would never have to be stern with him.

"Alright then. Shall we go meet Lady Merton? I'm sure she wouldn't want to be kept waiting, not after coming all the way from Yorkshire to see us."

* * *

They met Isobel in the square, as they'd agreed in the the correspondences that led up to this particular rendezvous, and after they exchanged greetings and Isobel remarked upon what a fine young woman Eileen was growing up to be, they set off for the rally.

Tom couldn't quite remember what it was a rally about- women's rights, most likely knowing Sybil and Isobel- and he saw it not so much as going to a rally as spending time with his wife's family.

Isobel and Eileen took the lead, their arms looped together as if they were grandmother and granddaughter, not cousins many times removed, while Tom and Sybil followed. They could hear Eileen asking questions, one following the other in a seemingly endless stream (did the similarities between her and Sybil ever end, Tom wondered), and Isobel indulged the young woman's curiosity, just as she had Sybil's in days that seemed decades behind them.

"She's like I was when I was younger," Sybil said quietly, ducking her head towards her husband so the brim of her hat pushed against his shoulder. A faint smile pulled at the corners of her lips, and the soft set of her brows could only be an expression of fondness. "Do you remember?"

"I remember many things from when we were both younger, love," Tom replied, his deliberate steps slowing to a halt as they reached the fringes of the crowd gathered to hear the speaker. "Your lovely blue trousers, for one."

"Oh, I'd hope you'd remember that, or else the children might miss out on a good bedtime story."

"Eileen could tell them now, she's heard it enough," Tom remarked, keeping his attention fixed on his daughter, who was still asking Isobel about the rally, no doubt. Tom could only imagine what questions Eileen had, and he almost stepped closer to listen, but Sybil held him back.

"Let her ask Isobel," his wife said. "So we can have some time to ourselves. Lord knows we won't get a moment's rest on the train back."

"I know but—"

"Don't worry," she interrupted, as if she could read her husband's mind. "We're close by, and Cousin Isobel won't let anything happen to her. If it does…well, they'll be answering to her mother."

Tom smiled, but the worry that had been tugging at his gut didn't subside.

No matter how many years passed, he would never forget the complete terror that had gripped him when Sybil had gotten hurt at that rally in Ripon. That would always be with him, the weight of her body in his arms (she'd been so light, he remembered, weighing no more than a child Eileen's age), the sea of bodies that he'd had to force his way through, and the growing fear that she wouldn't come to.

He had almost forbade Eileen from coming with them, but Sybil had assured him, much as she was doing now, that it would be alright. He'd made his wife promise that they would leave if he gave the word, which she'd gladly obliged, and added that he was "turning into a paranoid old man" too soon.

"And her father," he added, his lips set in a serious line. "I wouldn't let them get off _that_ easy."

She grinned. "Of course not," she said, rising on the balls of her feet to press her lips to his, a gloved hand guiding his attention away from their daughter, who had finally fallen silent and was listening intently to the speaker. "We're in this together. We always have been, and always will be."

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**A/N: Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. **

**Be sure to have a good Valentines and don't eat too much chocolate (learn from my mistakes, friends). Also be sure to review or comment otherwise if you have the chance to. **

**Thank you~ **


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